How Mamma Came to Indian Territory

 

Cora, Tom and Ada Rosser

I just have just a few pieces of information about how Mamma’s[i] family came from Arkansas to Indian Territory.

When the Rossers started west from Georgia after the Civil War, they had intended to join Grandpa’s brother Ed in Texas, but circumstances changed. Their oldest daughter Cora married a man in Marvell, Arkansas, near Palmer Station, where they were living, and Grandpa was elected magistrate, so they stayed for a while, 7 years, but something else happened that caused them to change their plans.

Mamma’s mother, Emily Bass Rosser, was expecting a large inheritance from her father in Alabama, but when word of Emily’s father’s death finally came, the inheritance turned out to be only a few gold coins, the equivalent of about $50, so they realized they were on their own.

I have no proof of it, and no one is left for me to ask, but I think Grandpa might have been influenced by my mother’s other grandfather, Sam Paul, a Chickasaw Indian. Sam Paul, was a “Progressive” among the Chickasaws, favoring the influx of white settlers, and according to some notes made by my uncle Haskell, he made trips to Arkansas and also to Texas to invite settlers to come to Indian Territory. Of course this scared the be-Jesus out of the more traditional full-bloods, or “Pull Backs.” They were used to living in a communal style, sharing land and other resources among themselves, and just wanted to be left alone.

Sam Paul, probably influenced more by his more ambitious father, Smith Paul, a Scotsman, thought the Indians could make money by renting their land to settlers, and could also benefit from the businesses and “civilization” the white men brought. He was also a politician, popular among the intermarried white citizens, and leader of the Chickasaw “Progressive” party.

Anyway, I wonder if Grandpa Rosser was persuaded to come to Indian Territory by one of Sam Paul’s talks. If the farm land in the Washita River valley was as good as Sam Paul claimed, maybe Grandpa could to provide for his four remaining daughters until they were married and independent. Ada, their youngest was only 9 (est.) Mamma was 11.

Mamma told about coming to Indian Territory with her family in an interview in 1937: [ii]

I came to the Indian Territory with my father and mother. We were moving from Mississippi to the Indian Territory in wagons, working horses and oxen in 1889. I was eleven years old. I remember people telling my father that he would have to be on the lookout for horse thieves. We had some trouble while crossing Arkansas, but after we crossed into the Indian Territory we never were bothered by anyone. My father would buy feed from the Indians and they were the most accommodating people I ever met. We came through Muskogee but there wasn't much of a town there then. At that time there were but few roads and at times it looked as if it would be impossible to go any farther. After several months of traveling over rough country we located at Pauls Valley. My Father traded the ox team, a tent and a few horses to Mr John Burks for a lease that had a two room log house on it. This lease had never been worked but there was a plowed furrow around it. My father and brother began putting this prairie land in cultivation. There was open range at that time, and you could have all the hogs and cattle you wanted to own, but you had to have your brand and mark on them. 

There was an Indian law at that time between the Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians that if anyone's cattle grazed over on the other's territory the person owning the cattle would be tried by the Indian laws and given the death sentence. They would carry out this sentence too but when anyone was given the death penalty for some crime under the Indian law he would be given an honor parole for a certain time in order to visit his family and straighten up his affairs. Then on the day set for him to die, this person would be at the place set and right on time. 

It cost five dollars a year permit for a family to live in the Indian Territory and two dollars and fifty cents for a single man. There would be collectors come around and collect this fee and if the collectors did not turn in all that he had collected then he would be tried under the Indian law and given so many lashes across the back. They had a whipping post at the place where the court was held. 

The Choctaws held court at Eagle Town and the Chickasaws held court at Tishomingo. 

I have heard my husband say he went to school at Cherokee town[iii] and at that time there was a church there. It was called a community church. My husband was Bill Paul, Sr., a grandson of Smith Paul, the man for whom Pauls Valley was named. 

Amos Waite built the first schoolhouse in Pauls Valley and it was a subscription school.[iv] A Mr Mackey taught this school. My father lived southwest of Pauls Valley about six miles, and my sister and I had to come to Pauls Valley to school. There were several children who lived in this community who had to come to Pauls Valley to school, so my father and several other men bought a frame building at Pauls Valley and moved it to this community. They made a school building out of it and this school was called Red Branch school. Today it is called Klondike. 

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[i] I’ll refer to my ancestors the way my mother did, since she’s my main source of information.

[ii] Indian Pioneer papers: Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma. 9/14/37. Mrs Victoria Paul, Pauls Valley Okla, Date of birth 1878. Mississippi, Father JT Rosser, born in Va, Mother Emily Bass, born in Alabama, Interview 8492 by Maurice R Anderson. OKGenWeb @ rootsweb.com

[iii] It’s interesting how Cherokee Town got its name. After Texas won its independence from Mexico, they attackedand destroyed a large settlement of Cherokees. Sam Houston, incidentally, who had been adopted by the Cherokees, tried unsuccessfully to intervene. The Cherokee families, driven from their homes, made the long journey to join their kin in the northern part of Indian Territory. On their way, they camped for a while just north of the future site of Pauls Valley. Later a small town sprung up there and it was called Cherokee Town, in their honor.

[iv] The Waites are our cousins and a quite remarkable family. My mother’s paternal g-grandmother, Ela-teecha, a full blood Chickasaw Indian, was born back in the Chickasaw homeland, near what is now Tupelo, Mississippi. Her first husband was a Scottish missionary, Jason McClure, with whom she had two children, Tecumseh and Catherine. McClure died in Indian Territory after the trail of tears, and Ela-teecha remarried, the second time to my mother’s g-grandfather, Smith Paul. Anyway, Tecumseh was quite prominent, serving for a time as Chickasaw Governor. Unlike his half brother Sam Paul, he was in the Pull Back political party and opposed white settlement. He also favored setting aside tribal land as a wildlife preserve. Catherine, Ela-teecha’s other child by McClure, married a white man, Tom Waite, who like many others, had come to Indian Territory seeking land. They had eight children together, two boys and six girls, and all were college educated. I think that is remarkable, not just that they were able to do it, but that they valued education that much. Tom Waite died in 1874 and Catherine actually moved to Ohio so that her daughters would have access to an education. Amos, as noted above, started the first school in Pauls Valley, and his brother Fred was Speaker of the Chickasaw House of Representatives, and Attorney General for the tribe. 

Loose Ends #5

As it turned out, five out of my last six posts have been about Chickasaw history and culture. The reason for this is that you need to understand the history of the Chickasaws to understand the history of our family. Smith Paul came to live with the Chickasaws in 1820, so by the time he accompanied them on their removal to Indian Territory in 1837 he would have been intimately familiar with Chickasaw culture. In 1844, he married my great great grandmother, Ela Teecha, a full blood Chickasaw woman, so at that point our family became an Indian family. Chickasaw history became our history and Chickasaw tradition became our tradition.

My first two posts described the Chickasaw wars with the French during the early 1700's. This is such a remarkable story that I just couldn't cram it into one post. The ability of the Chickasaws, who have always been a small tribe, to master the weapons and methods of fortification modern at the time and to prevail against a French army of superior numbers still amazes me. There have been many, including Bienville himself, who have attempted to make excuses for the French defeat, but you just have to give credit to the Chickasaws, not just for their bravery but for their organization, planning, and intelligence. They proved themselves superior in every way to the French, twice.  

After these two articles about Chickasaw history I decided to begin the story of Jim's maternal heritage even though I don't know many details about the Rosser family before the time of the Civil War. "Grandpa," as my mother knew him, fled his native Georgia after the War and brought his family west to Indian Territory. He really belongs to the next generation after Smith Paul, but he was so important in Jim's life I didn't want to wait too long before introducing him.

After beginning "Grandpa's" story, I went back to the story of Smith Paul. Smith didn't chronicle his experiences during the many years he spent with the Chickasaws in their homeland, but I think we can assume that he would have become thoroughly familiar with their culture and traditions, and he would have understood the tremendous changes they were going through. To get an idea about how great these changes were you have to know where the Chickasaws had come from.

In 1820, A Time of Change for the Chickasaws I described the close knit, matriarchal society of the Chickasaws prior to their contact with the white man, a society that was rich with legends and traditions, a society that was being disrupted in 1820, when Smith Paul came to live with them.

I believe that Chickasaw clan tradition explains much of our family history, and would probably explain more if we could only talk with our ancestors. The close relation between my great grandfather with his uncle Ja-paw-nee, and between my grandfather's older brother Joe and his uncle Tecumseh fits the Chickasaw tradition of the maternal uncle taking responsibility for educating young boys. Likewise the murder of my great grandfather Sam Paul by his own son Joe goes along with the Chickasaw tradition of holding family members responsible for executing warriors who became a threat to tribal interests.

In Chickasaw Legends I tried to explain how deeply spiritual the Chickasaws were, how they believed that supernatural forces affected every aspect of their lives, and how some of these beliefs have survived into recent times.

Smith Paul was living with the Chickasaws just when their ancient beliefs were being threatened. Imagine how helpless they must have felt: their healers unable to cure the white men's diseases, their shamans unable to stop the wave of white settlers that threatened their borders. As a final blow they were being forced to move away from their ancient homeland, where all their traditions, all their mythology and legends were rooted. Grant Foreman, in his book Removal explains it this way: "More than white people they cherished a passionate attachment for the earth that held the bones of their ancestors and relatives. Few white people either understood or respected this sentiment. The trees that shaded their homes and firesides, the cooling spring that ministered to every family, friendly watercourses, familiar trails and prospects, busk grounds, and council houses were their property and their friends; these simple possessions filled their lives; their loss was cataclysmic."  

In Chickasaw Life and Culture I dealt for the first time with the issue that split our family and led to the death of my great grandfather Sam Paul: the schism between the mixed blood and full blood factions within the tribe. Through the years the full bloods had withdrawn into the background, allowing the prosperous mixed bloods to take over tribal government, but when communal ownership of land, the last remnant of their ancient tribal customs became threatened, the full bloods rose up and reclaimed tribal leadership.

What comes next? The "Trail of Tears," or the forced removal of the Five Civilized Tribes to Indian Territory, now the present state of Oklahoma. This is the most significant event in the history of the Five Civilized Tribes and I've been worrying about how to deal with it, how to give it the emphasis that it deserves. What I have decided is to cover the removal of all the tribes instead of just the Chickasaws. It is really one story, a story of greed and cruelty, a story of suffering and death, a story of the end of a way of life.

Each tribe fought removal in its own way, but the tribes' struggles were all interconnected. The Chickasaw removal was actually the last of the large migrations, but while they learned from the struggles of their brothers, and used the same skills that had enabled them in the past to negotiate better conditions for themselves than the other tribes, in the end the Chickasaw migration was just as tragic as the rest.